Bison Range decision necessary

We were just as surprised as Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribal officials when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service abruptly terminated a shared management arrangement at the National Bison Range at Moiese last week.

There had been, after all, an agreement over the last year, and there were ongoing negotiations to renew that "Annual Funding Agreement," with the tribes seeking expanded management authority at the bison range and other refuges and waterfowl production areas in the region. But those expectations were apparently far-fetched, partly for reasons that were previously mentioned on this page.

"That was always a nonstarter for us," said a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesmen about the prospects for expanded tribal management authority. "If leadership of the agency and Congress decided to divest this property, then that opportunity would be there. As long as the bison range remains part of the federal wildlife refuge system, then that's not on the table."

In other words, granting tribal wishes for expanded authority would require an abdication of national lands and an act of Congress. Not likely, at least in the near-term.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the tribes intended to continue with the past year's shared management arrangement, even though it expired in September, until negotiations produced a long-term management plan. But without a realistic outlook for that agreement, the federal agency terminated shared management instead.

And in the aftermath, it became even more clear that the two sides were not seeing eye-to-eye on much of anything. They were talking past each other. And at the same time they were both acknowledging that the arrangement of the past year wasn't working.

The feds said the tribal contract workers weren't meeting performance expectations on many levels. Tribal officials said they were approaching shared management in good faith, but the feds were being so arbitrary and picky in their expectations that there was an outright effort to sabotage shared management.

Then there were the disturbing, racial overtones of alleged workplace conflicts. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that there was "harassing, offensive, intimidating and oppressive behavior on the part of the employees of the [confederated tribes], including obscenity, fighting words and threats of violence and retaliation directed at employees of the Service."

A tribal spokesman said, "it became apparent very early on that (the federal employees) viewed us as untrustworthy, incapable and unwanted."

It sounds like there wasn't any area where shared management was working.

Perhaps the only workable solution on the horizon is a recent suggestion that the Bison Range provide the tribes with bison to manage into a competing herd on tribal lands. The bison on the federal range, after all, are descendants of a herd that was started by tribal members more than 100 years ago. If the tribes want to express their cultural heritage by managing bison, they should have that opportunity.

But managing the Bison Range facility is more than managing bison, and it appears that Fish and Wildlife made the correct decision when it ended the arrangement with the tribes.